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Last night at 6 pm, I read the Declaration of Independence aloud to about fifty Anne Arundel County residents in the William Brown House at Historic London Town and Gardens.
The document was signed 250 years ago on July 5, but it was on July 8 that copies had been printed and were being read at taverns and public spaces throughout the thirteen colonies.
That’s why Maryland250 and its affiliate organizations, including Chesapeake Crossroads Heritage Area organized simultaneous readings across the state. It’s part of America 250’s Sharing the Spirit of America.
I was asked to select a location for a reading, and William Brown House was an obvious choice. It’s been restored to the way it would have looked in 1776 when it operated as a tavern, long before it became the county’s almshouse. It’s likely that somebody actually read the very same document to the assembled customers in the room where we gathered, and if you’ve never been there, this weekend’s Revolutionary London Town Living History Weekend is a great time to go.
I hadn’t read the Declaration in a long time - probably high school. So I read it a few days ago. It’s pretty radical. Very radical for its time. And harsh toward the King.
It’s a total takedown of the authoritarian forms of government that most of the world practiced at the time, and a celebration of democracy and self-governance. You don’t have to get far into the document to understand why these readings were promoted by the non-partisan America 250, but were not among the Trump administration’s Freedom 250 events. But I was determined at last night’s reading to avoid any direct reference to Trump or his administration.
The audience included south county lifelong Republicans, No Kings marchers, descendants of enslaved African Americans, and the director of the Annapolis Immigration Justice Network. It was diverse, and I didn’t want to alienate anyone. American history has a way of bringing people together when it’s done right.
The Declaration speaks for itself. It needed no interpretation by me. Instead, I invited people at the outset to disagree with parts of what was written, noting that even in 1776 not everyone agreed with its message, including my fifth great-grandfather, who promptly returned to Scotland with his eldest son, while his other sons stayed here and joined the rebellion.
The further into the document I got last night, the more animated I became. I found myself with one foot in 1776 and the other in 2026. I was ready to do battle.
“He has refused his assent to laws…”
“He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance…”
“He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners…”
“He has obstructed the administration of justice…”
“He has made judges dependent on his will alone…”
“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people…”
“He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.”
“For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world…”
“For imposing taxes on us without our consent…”
“For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses…”
“For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments…”
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us…”
They were some pretty pissed off rebels, but they had some very lofty goals. Reading them in that building to our gathered audience felt really good.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
I didn’t get to read the paragraph condemning the slave trade and the King for his role in creating it. It got deleted to get signatures from all thirteen colonies. But I made sure the audience knew about it.
I encouraged people to read Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? And we all drank a sparkling cider toast to 250 years and many more.
We are lucky to live in a place where so much American history took place. And we are lucky that every generation of native-born Americans and the immigrants who have joined them have been inspired by that history, subscribed to its founding principles, and worked to defend and achieve them, even when that work meant giving up one’s life for the cause.
And we are challenged by the slogan of Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel and our Annapolis 250 Commission, to Be Revolutionary.
Our history is not over. Our work is not done. Please make sure that you, your family, and your friends partake in the Maryland 250 and Annapolis 250 activities, so that you too can reflect on what comes next and where you fit in.
Until next week…